City Hall in Grinnell Plans Move to Former Transportation Museum

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The former Spaulding Transportation Center will be the new Grinnell City Hall. (Roger Riley WHO-HD)

GRINNELL, Iowa- The City of Grinnell is hiring a contractor to do some renovation to a new space for City Offices.

“We’re going to move into what amounts to a historic rehab that’s more appropriately sized for our operations,” said Russ Behrens, City Manager for Grinnell. “What the Transportation Museum did was preserve the Spaulding complex of buildings which will be the city offices.”

The museum was housed in the former Spaulding auto manufacturing plant which at one time operated in Grinnell.

The City of Grinnell was a backer of a loan for the Spaulding Transportation Museum. Last year that non-profit could not meet loan obligations, meaning the City would be the owner of the museum building.

After 10 years of trying to sell the current City Hall space, a buyer has been found. The City Hall/ Community Center, which is a former Junior High School will now become a boutique hotel. New owners are working to remodel the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building now.

“They’re converting the building into a 46 room hotel and event center,” said Behrens. “Construction is underway right now we’re the only tenants.”

The current building was way too large for needed offices at City Hall. A number of other tenants were in the building, but they have left.

The City plans to hold a ribbon cutting for their new City Hall in January.